Implode - Boa Kwon

Jongin captured her in a windy afternoon where they promised to meet each other after work. A message from Amber was sent to him earlier that day when she received flowers.

He saw her standing across the street, waiting for him to come. Something warm sparked inside of his heart. Wasn't it lovely to see? The girl dressed nicely almost all the time. But that day, as if she had known that someone would send her flowers, her costumes with mint blue blouse, white jeans and green scarf went absolutely well with the bundle of scarlet roses she was holding.

Amber was talking with a female colleague who looked in awe at the flowers while the pixie girl's smile seemed to be a little stiff and she shook her head lightly. Their story must have turned to something more interesting. Amber tilted her head a little backward in laughter before constantly scratching her hair back to where it used to be. Untamed wind blew her brown hair all to the left. It sparked a warmer shade under dots of sunshine, almost looked like the color of honey.

The other girl left with her supposed to be boyfriend and Jongin took it as his turn. He sneaked from behind and put his black snapback on her head. This way, the wind wouldn't mess her hair up. Then he enclosed a grip on her wrist and took her away to somewhere they wouldn't be noticed by the crowd of colleagues.

Under the rim of his hat, her vision narrowed down to the back of his blue checkered shirt. The sun shone its last goodbye contrariwise on their path when Jongin looked pass the broadness of his shoulder and lightened a smile.

"Let's go, April."

With that, he filled the gaps between her fingers with pure affection. Definitely he bewildered the girl which was written all over her face. Amber was so dazed that the only thing she could do was follow his footsteps.

They stopped at a water fountain not far from Hwadam when abruptly his April took back her hand. Jongin turned to catch a confusing gaze darting back and forth between Jongin and the surprising gift he gave her.

"I thought you had sent it to me by mistake..."

"No, I didn't. Flowers are all yours."

Jongin confirmed with an anxious half grin. He hadn't prepared himself for that. Although he was the one that poured romance into their relationship, it still came as a sudden disappointment to face the fact that perhaps Amber had never thought of anything beyond friend-zone.

"But what makes me... April?"

Jongin fixed his spot in front of her and whirled the hat back. He lifted her chin a little to establish a proper eye contact, trying to make keeping his confession far from mistakes and misunderstanding.

"April is when I first met you. "Nice day!" was the first thing you said to me. Is that clear enough that I adore you?"

Her gaze strayed out of his. It was wary in movement of thoughts that he was unable to interpret. She blinked slowly. A corner of her lips curved up as if she was about to tell him something. But it didn't come out.

This move was adventurous. Kris was still there, deeply imprinted his shadow on her heart and mind which was apparent in her swollen eyes some other mornings. Jongin sent a wish into the wind that he wasn't burning out what they had so far.

He his dry lips. In less than a minute, so many things seemed to happen that he lost track of what was really going on. 

"Jongin-shi, this is so... unexpected."

Finally she uttered and Jongin heaved out a mixture of relief and anticipation. At least it wasn't a deny, or not just yet. 

"From now on, should you expect more from me?"

He joked half-heartedly. What if she knew he was so lightheaded then? 

Amber gently shoved the flowers into his chest. Her soft voice seemed to be broken in shaken notes.

"I don't know. I'm not so sure either, whether I should take these roses or not. I've not been ready to live this fantasy yet again. This is unfair for you, and maybe for me too. Letting go of what happened between me and sunbae is an incomplete mission for me. I'm sorry."

From the angle he was looking at Jongin traced the fluttering of her eyelashes, the steady silence in between her sentences when she inhaled and exhaled. It is hard to explain why one’s tiny motions  unbelievably draw him in like this. Perhaps they speak louder than any word that sounds. Or perhaps because they belong to Amber who is charming in everything she does.

"You don't have to. The wrong timing is my fault. I'm just afraid I'd be late again... But please take it, either the love or the roses you deserve to have."

He put flowers back into her hands and this time, hesitatingly Amber hugged them into her chest again. A wide smile unknowingly dropped on his lips. The will to take this girl into his arms was overwhelming inside of him like a wave that he had to suppress with all of his strength. This girl is just too much for him to handle.

"What if somehow I hurt your feelings?” She asked and sighed, at the same time folding her scarf and putting it back into her bag. "... Like wearing a gift from him on the day receiving your flowers? I feel like cheating, to hide in a new relationship with you. I just woke up this morning and missed him so much that I allowed me to live the old memories just for today..."

For the first time in this conversation, she looked at him with that glassy eyes of hers. Jongin took in large oxygen and released it with the warmest and most reliable tone of his voice.

"If you're not ready, I won't force you to oblige or promise. We'll take it slow. I'll be waiting, as long as you keep me beside you. And Amber, I'll be nice to you so fall for me. I won't be another Kris for you."

Amber hid her flush in the bouquet and the gaps between her fingers were then perfect for Jongin to fill in.

Once upon a time Jongin had seen the sky in blurry shades of eternal winter and lost interest in the world out there. With each day she opened the door for him to breeze in, everything came to him in its more and more realistic, definite forms, as if the thin ice covering his eyes had melt away.

There was no routine being set. On a random early morning, Amber would find a scarlet rose on the white fences of her house when going to work, the type of rose that he sent to Hwadam in the first place. Some other mornings he would come to fetch her. Together they both flustered for the mischievous smiles of the two certain guys at Yu's coffee. She would take him to nice places far from the city on weekends, taking pictures of him in the sceneries in which he found himself new and energetic. Her hands tugging on the hem of his shirts when she had something to tell him never failed to make his heart beat fast. Jongin knew he couldn't be more transparent. Each time he managed to feel the warmth from her hands, butterflies flew round and round inside his stomach and Jongin found he grinned ear to ear like a bizarre idiot.

There was no secret kept from Amber. On an early winter day, he took her to his house and told her all about the years he had with Soojung, both in the good and the bad side of them. Jongin expected some clues of jealousy from her, yet she didn't show them up. 

"Pulling the knife out of a wound is even more painful than holding it inside." She said in deep thought. "So you taste it all, then you finally can tell me that later when we look back, years of struggling will make up beautiful memories."  

"Only if you agree with me that this whole ordeal is beautiful memories. Loving someone should never be regretful to remember, like how I loved Soojung, how she loved me, like you loved Kris, and how I love you now."

Jongin always felt special in between the brief moments they searched for each other in the eyes. He guessed she felt the same too because Amber sheepily smiled in return of the emotion he showed for her to see.   

"Your first love, she makes me feel like a ugly bear. This girl is... graceful, like a princess. No wonder why she's hard to forget."

Sitting on the carpet in the living room of his apartment, she pouted. Her cheeks puffed in the description of a bear when seeing a picture Soojung in his high school yearbook.

"Only in pictures did she act like that. Soojung was an authentic gangster, I swear. And you are a princess... I mean,